Thursday, April 14, 2011

Know Thy Enemy: Oakland Athletics

The Tigers have won two in a row. If they win again, that is called a winning steak. Yes, I kind of stole that from “Major League”, but it’s been so long, I thought we could all use the reminder.

Up next, the team heads out west to face the Oakland A’s. Canseco, McGwire, the Hendersons, Stewart, and the immortal Mike Gallego may not be on the field for them anymore (well, Gallego is the third base coach), but the Athletics are one of the favorites in the AL West this year. Let’s check them out.

Overview

The "Athletics" name originates from the late 19th century "athletic clubs", specifically the Philadelphia Athletics baseball club. One of the AL’s eight charter franchises, the A’s were founded in Philly in 1901. In 1955, they moved to Kansas City before settling in Oakland in 1968.

They are the franchise of “Moneyball”, after the book about their GM Billy Beane, and sit at .500 with a 6-6 record thus far in 2011. We also owe them a debt of gratitude for making Ozzie Guillen have his latest nervous breakdown by whooping on the White Sox this week. That’s always fun.

39 members of the Hall of Fame spent at least some time with the Athletics during their careers. That’s amazing…

Face of the Franchise

No one sticks around in Oakland too long, nowadays, for one reason or another. But I guess Dallas Braden would be the current FotF. He threw baseball’s 19th perfect game last year against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Braden was a 24th round pick for the A’s in 2004. Seriously, the entire Tigers scouting division should be shot in their faces. Again, we took Leyland’s kid in the 8th round! Why am I the only one angered that we waste our draft picks and our minor league system sucks because of it! Arghhh!

Sorry. Braden’s best pitch is his changeup. He’s faced the Tigers 8 times and, holy crap, we’ve done well against him. Braden is 2-4 with a 6.75 ERA versus our boys. In 42.2 innings, Detroit has 56 hits, including 7 home runs. Brandon Inge is 5/15 against him with 2 homers. Magglio Ordonez is 5/16 against him with 2 dingers, as well. Hopefully Jimbo kisses his boo boo enough to get him on the field against Braden. Finally, Ryan Raburn is 6/15 against him with a homer and two doubles.

He’ll probably throw a no-hitter against us now. My bad.

Old Friends

None. Oakland goes after guys that take pitches and get on base. The Tigers do not. Thus, none of our ex-guys are anywhere near the A’s.

Other Superstar Players

No superstars, but a lot of good, young talent. Oh, they also have Hideki Matsui's corpse.

Most Hated Athletic

David DeJesus scares me. Why? Because you don’t fuck with DeJesus.

/Lebowski’d

The 31 year old DeJesus should be no stranger to Tiger fans after all his years as a Kansas City Royal. He has a career OPS+ of 116 against Detroit, with a .308 average. His 9 triples, 6 homers, and 46 RBI career-wise against us are all personal bests for David against any team. However, he has no career homers against any of our current pitchers. He’s hit Rick Porcello well (4/12, 2B, 3B), and pray that Brad Thomas doesn’t be brought in to get him out (2/3, RBI). And for poops and giggles, DeJesus was the ONE guy that Our Hero, Nate Robertson, was effective against as Dave only went 2/18 against him.

I’m actually surprised his vs. Tiger numbers are not all higher as DeJesus is one of those guys that always seems to kill us. For that reason, I nominate him to be beheaded with a hacksaw while his family watches.

Fanbase

Oakland fans are all pretty much lunatic Raider fans or those too homophobic to root for San Francisco. That’s about it other than those still in denial about the Canseco/McGwire teams of the 80’s and 90’s not all being roid-heads.

Summary

This is another team we should beat. The Tigers are looking better and took two out of three games from the hottest team in baseball. That’s good.

Granted to do this, we needed to maim their best player and win on two straight walk-offs. That’s not as good.

These West Coast trips suck. 10:05 starts are awful. I’m just glad we’re getting them out of the way early this year.

Do Not Take This Blog Seriously.

The only thing I enjoy more than Detroit Tigers baseball is making fun of it and those that write about it. Most things you read here are meant in a humorous way. So do everyone a favor and lighten up. It's a joke. Oftentimes a bad one...

DesigNate Robertson was named after ex-Tiger pitcher, Nate Robertson and my hatred of his performances on the mound. He will be missed.

To those with an open mind and a sense of humor, I welcome you. Lets have some fun.